Let me start with the cat. Her name is Sasha, which my son pronounces "Sassa." He sort of lisps when he says it, which I guess is standard two-year-old pronunciation, and normally I think it's cute. Right now, though, nothing is cute, and I can't decide if I hate my hair more than my cat. My hair falls into my eyes whenever I look down, and I am annoyed by this 75093-485-74597324 times a day. (Please ignore hyphens. I don't have a number pad on my laptop, which means my frustrated large number creation spaz attacks don't even work properly.) Anyway, back to the hair. I would cut it, but there is the aesthetic. Luckily, I don't usually have sharp objects in my possession during my fits of irritation, because I would probably stab own eyes out in attempt to cut hair off.
But I said I was starting with the cat. My mother in law is visiting, and she keeps forgetting her glasses. She cannot read, see, walk, or hear (I know.) without them, so I am unsure why she ever takes them off. When I ask her she says, "Stupid habit" and then takes them off again. I am learning to avoid the topic. I love my mother in law. I truly do. She is sweet and eccentric. She loves my son, and Ari loves her. She spends time playing with him when I and my wife are sick and/or exhausted. She tries to teach him to read. She cuddles him and brings him large bags of clothing and the best toys he's ever gotten. But I swear to God if I had a staple gun, I would staple those glasses to her eyeballs. And if I had a tube of Superglue, I would glue them to her face. Because every time she enters a room, even somehow if it is THE ROOM HER GLASSES ARE IN, she says "Oh, I forgot my glasses" and turns around (which takes her 15 minutes) to go back for them. The only way to avoid her long disappearance is for me to leap up, race to the place where I know her glasses are, somehow get around her (She invariably is blocking the door in these crucial moments.), and retrieve her glasses before she leaves. Alternatively, I can try and distract my son who wants desperately to play with her until she returns, but this is time consuming and he typically likes her better than me, so I take one for the team and race off to fetch them. I do this several times an hour. It is exhausting.
But I said this was about the cat. In the midst of my glasses retrieval missions, I have the cat to deal with. She is crazy. She wants fresh water, with ice cubes, 57924852098-6235543 times an hour. She meows and meows at me for this. She inserts her fuzzy little body in front of my feet, tripping me, yearning madly for fresh water, which must be cold, and must have left the Brita within the past ten minutes, or is rejected. (At the reject times, she digs with her paws on the linoleum to "bury" her water bowl, I guess to protect it from other animals in case she is ever desperate enough to drink the abhorrent, 11-minute-old water.) My mother in law has taken to giving Sasha fresh ice cubes whenever they are in the kitchen together. The two of them stand there in the kitchen, my MIL making mishaps by dropping ice cubes and knocking over cups of fluids and then slipping on the spills and banging her head accidentally on the freezer door with Sasha weaving lovingly through her legs.
I know to stay out of the room. Still, I am grateful at these times to have them occupying each other. Nobody needs their glasses. The water refreshing is happening without me. My son looks on from the safety of the living room, giggling happily. I am not stupid: I know a gift when I see one. I sit on the couch and take a breath, and all, for now, is well.
